I've been reading about Dust Devil and I'm really excited to try it out. I'm a big pdf fan, though, so I thought I'd wait for it. Now I'm getting impatient, and I was wondering if the content of the pdf is going to be any different from the print version. Should I just go ahead and spring for the print copy?

Also, I was hoping you guys could suggest some good western books. Any good novels that are in a Dust Devils type mood?

I'll let Matt handle the PDF/book question, as I have no clue, but I can make some recommendations.

Zane Grey: The Riders of the Purple Sage, The Border Legion, and othersThis guy wrote in the early 1900s, and if I'm not mistaken, pretty much set the tone for nearly everything afterward.

Movies!The Man Who Shot Liberty ValanceDestry Rides AgainThe ShootistNo Name on the BulletUnforgivenShane (and essentially its remake, Pale Rider)Two Mules for Sister SarahHigh Plains DrifterDjango[I specifically exclude The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which in my opinion is a parody.]

Comics!Marshal Blueberry (Moebius)Jonah Hex (original DC series from the 70s, not the comedic remake from the 90s)

My personal favorites for reading is Louis Lamour. The style is clear and easy to read, and the stories are very character focused. I'm particularly fond of the Sacket series of novels, and the spinoffs with Milo Talon (esp Where the Long Grass Blows).

These novels tend to be pretty lightweight, and I don't know that there are too many of the characters who are devil-ridden. They are extremely entertaining, and if you're looking for something that's not so dark I recommend giving them a try. They also have the advantage of being widely available in public libraries, and a great number have been made into audio recordings. I have a long commute each day, so audio books give me a good way to steal some extra reading time.

I've been reading about Dust Devil and I'm really excited to try it out. I'm a big pdf fan, though, so I thought I'd wait for it. Now I'm getting impatient, and I was wondering if the content of the pdf is going to be any different from the print version. Should I just go ahead and spring for the print copy?

Also, I was hoping you guys could suggest some good western books. Any good novels that are in a Dust Devils type mood?

Cody --

I'm very pleased you're eager to get your hands on Dust Devils. PDF fans of the world unite, 'cause Dust Devils is <this> close to release. Just a final agreement with my pal / programmer, and we're set. I hope to have the PDF ready by the end of the week (he's out of the office, so to speak)

As for suggestions for more viewing, folks have really nailed recommendations thus far. The only ones I'll add to the list of films are:

Here are some excerpts from the first half of The Border Legion, by Zane Grey, published in 1916.

Regarding the anti-hero of the piece:Kells was of a different stamp. ... he was pale, grey-eyed, intelligent, amiable. He appeared to be a man who had been a gentleman. But there was something strange, intangible, immense about him.... it took no second look to see here was a man remarkably out of the ordinary. Some kind of power or intensity emanated from him.

[later, upon pistol-whipping a henchman] His face had not changed, but his eyes were terrible. On the background of gray were strange, leaping red flecks.

... Kells had two sides to his character; or it seemed, rather, that her presence developed a latent or long-dead side. When she was with him, thereby distracting his attention, he was entirely different from what he was when his men surrounded him. Apparently he had no knowledge of this. He showed surprise and gratitude at Joan's kindness though never pity or compassion for her. That he had become infatuated with her Joan could no longer doubt. His strange eyes followed her; there was a dreamy light in them; he was mostly silent with her.

And my favorite, Joan's decision regarding him:

All that was woman in her - mounting, fighting, hating - leaped to the power she sensed in herself. If she could be deceitful, cunning, shameless in holding out to Kells a possible return of his love, she could do anything with him. She knew it. She did not need to marry him or sacrifice herself. Joan was amazed that the idea had remained an instant before her consciousness. But something had told her that this was another kind of life than she had known, and all that was precious to her hung in the balance. Any falsity was justifiable, even righteous, under the circumstances. Could she formulate a plan that this keen bandit would not see through? The remotest possibility of her even caring for Kells - that was as much as she dared hint. But that, together with all the charm and seductiveness she could summon, might be enough. Dared she try it? If she tried and failed Kells would despise her and then she was utterly lost. She was caught between doubt and hope. All that was natural and true in her shrank from such unwomanly deception; all that had been born of her wild experience inflamed her to play the game, to match Kells' villainy with a woman's unfathomable duplicity.

And these are just two of the four most devil-ridden characters I've seen lately in any story. I'm halfway through The Border Legion and it's one of the finest westerns I've even imagined could exist.

Grey has a way of writing which is totally weird to modern eyes. On the one hand are all these bosom-heaving, passionate, purple-prosed bits, right out of a bodice-ripper ("She shivered to an onslaught of sensations never before imagined ..." etc) and on the other are appalling sequences of violence equalled only by Robert E. Howard, as in The Riders of the Purple Sage, in which the anti-hero Lassiter dismembers a man with carefully-placed shots from a high-caliber pistol, and it's described shot by shot.

Thanks for posting those excerpts, Ron. I remember when you mentioned these passages and the scene of Lassiter dismembering so poor sap. Reading the prose here is a great taste of Grey's weird & wonderful passionate writing. Gotta get me some of this! I'll keep an eye out in my usual book-hounding rounds. My dad may have some already, now that I think about it.